Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K
by C. V. Spike
Summary: Second Earth is being threatened by the evil of Saint Dane and it's up to Bobby and Vo to stop him. With strange things afoot and the prospect of World War III on the horizon, and the fact that Vo's never been to a movie theater, ya just gotta read it!
1. Strange Things Afoot

_Author's Note and Disclaimer: I do not own Pendragon; I wish! The awesome awesomeness that is Pendragon belongs to D.J. MacHale. I'm just hoping to entertain myself, my friends, and those fans that are waiting eagerly for the next book to come out :3 That in mind, I've read all the books, so, I apologize if there are any spoilers. And, also, there are some things which, you may notice, I have chosen to _blatantly ignore_. Say it ain't so! But, remember, this is just for the fun of it all. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for reading. Hobey ho, let's go, and all that!_

_C.V. Spike, November 20, 2007_

Pendragon, Journal #1 (for simplicity's sake)

(a.k.a. Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K)

We've got a problem, guys. We knew the time would finally come, when Saint Dane would attack our home. And, I know I said you guys would get to play a part in it. And you will. I promise. Just, not yet.

I guess the best way to say it is that, for now, at least, we've got to play the Spy card. And let me tell you, it's nothing like those movies with all the fancy gadgets and behind-the-scenes dudes. In fact, it's probably more like 'a pair of wigs, contacts, and a cheap apartment with leaky pipes'.

That in mind, I'm writing to you from Chicago- yep. The windy city. So, I _am _here, on Second Earth- it's just that this particular stage of the game's got me a few hundred miles from my usual teammates.

If I could've, I would've brought you guys, Mark and Courtney. But, regretfully, that seemed a little impossible. No matter how many times I thought about it, I couldn't come up with an explanation for taking you to Chicago with me that would satisfy your parents. Still, I'm hoping I can rely on you guys to try not to go nuts until it's time for you to help out.

Anyhow, though, I couldn't do this alone- well, I guess I could've, but this particular missions seemed more like a two-man job. With that said, after contemplating my choices, I narrowed it down to one guy as being the most suitable for the job- Vo Spader. After all, he'd been to First Earth before, so it'd take away_ some _of the shock, right?

So, I'd flumed to the abandoned subway tunnel, and I'd gotten a letter giving me the essential details of this shindig (yeah, not the usual, huh? But more on that later). After deciding that Vo was the man for the job, you can guess where I went. I won't go into much detail on my short trip to Cloral, but I've gotta say, it's great when you don't have to worry about quigs. I also gotta say it's pretty handy to have your boss in on the Traveler gig, because after a quick chat with Yenza and a mug of sniggers, we were off to Second Earth. As always, the flume seems to put us just where we need to be in time, because there was a letter waiting for us when we got there.

_Bobby. Vo._

_Bobby, as you already know, all is not well on Second Earth. The only thing is, we don't know what's wrong just yet. Our former letter informed you of the possibility of using espionage to your advantage. Vo, I thank you personally for standing up and coming to our aid. Things have been arranged for you in Chicago, Illinois. Airline tickets and some money can be found in this envelope. (Further money has been wired to a bank in Chicago if necessary; you can thank Gunny for making this possible). _

_I hope you don't mind that I've been looking into this without telling you. I know it's not the place of an acolyte to direct a Traveler, but I think I've really got something here. I'm sure you can agree that you need all the help you can get, and we acolytes simply wish we could help you more._

The letter was unsigned, like the one I'd gotten when I first arrived here, without Spader. I know it's not typical, but it's kind of nice not having to figure everything out for once, you know? Even though it's really just a lead, it's pretty nice.

"So we get to be spies, mate?" Spader asked, seeming at least mildly excited at the prospect.

"Yup," I replied. "Just like in the movies." At seeing Spader's puzzled expression, I couldn't help but smile. "You'll see," I added. I also vowed then and there that, at some point on this journey, I'm getting Spader to a movie theater.

And so we go.

xXxXx

After changing into Second Earth gear (a red t-shirt that had the word 'green' printed across it in black and khakis for me, a white shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans that didn't fit very well, but definitely didn't fit me, for Spader), we set off. Spader mumbled something, but I didn't quite hear him- I was more distracted by a sound outside the door to the flume…

And let me tell you, there were _definitely _a lot of quigs here. The sound I'd heard was one of them scratching about at a wall, probably trying to catch a rat or something. But as soon as they heard us, every pair of yellow eyes found us. And, seemingly all as one, they pounced.

Being the brave Travelers we are, we of course did the noble thing- we turned tail and ran.

"Mate! What's this?" Spader asked. He had a spraycan in his hands. He'd probably asked the question earlier. I didn't really figure this was the time to figure out what a mystery bottle was, but handing it to me, I could see that it said clearly on it 'pepperspray'. Of course, Spader wouldn't really know what pepperspray was- but I did. Knowing the quig-dogs were right behind us, I tried to aim behind me, and did a quick horizontal shot of the air behind me, catching one quig right in the face.

The sound of their pained howling was one of the most terrible things I think I've ever heard in my life. Definitely not the _most _terrible, but, certainly up there on the list. Their powerful noses were probably bleeding due to the stuff, and some of them probably had gotten it in their eyes, too. There were a lot, though, so it wasn't like one shot would do the trick. However, it did a lot in hindering them, and we managed to get out of the place unscathed- which was awesome, by the way. Whoever put the pepperspray in that jacket, you're my hero. If we plan a return, we're definitely gonna want to make sure we have that.

There was a moped waiting for us outside. It was a fairly crappy moped, scratched up, but full of fuel. A note attached to it said '_This'll get you to the city, at least. Then ditch it_.' So we crammed onto the thing, with me driving, and zoomed off to the city. After ditching the moped in an alleyway, we hailed a cab, and headed off for our departure airport.

I could barely believe what would come next- Travelers, traveling! Traveling _like everybody else_! Oh man. _Flumes- if they can't get you there, well, there's always commercial airlines!_

And I was sure Spader was gonna just _love _it.

_Please review! Let me know if I should keep writing or not! And yes. It does mark it as a comedy. It's coming- you just have to give it time to get there. I'm doing my best to write and word things as I think Pendragon would. Which means I've gotta save the best things for… middle-ish! X3_

_Also, as a slight glimpse into the future, you'll get to see some of Spader's journals, too! Just wait for it:D _

_Thanks for reading! With your support, Journal #2 should be coming soon!_

_(Note: 'Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K'- Reference to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)_


	2. Traveling Travelers

_Notes: Same as before. Don't own Pendragon; if I did, I wouldn't be writing on FanFiction, that's for sure. More than anything, I just wanna say keep reviewing. I just hope I'm entertaining you, at least a little! And, of course, sorry for the spoilers if there are any, but, I daresay, they're rather unavoidable. _

_C.V. Spike, _

Pendragon, Journal #1 (continued)

(a.k.a. Traveling Travelers)

The cab ride was fairly silent- Spader was busy being amazed by the sights of Second Earth, which were probably all the more awesome, since not all too long ago he'd seen what this territory _used_ to look like. It was pretty obvious he would've loved to speak his excitement, but, wisely, he chose not to explode into such conversation with the cab driver in earshot. Something about not being familiar with a territory could make you ask a lot of strange questions that unnerved normal people. Imagine that.

Anyhow, on the ride there, I was flipping through the stuff in the envelope. There was money in there, two airline boarding passes, and two fake IDs. Man, I've gotta give the acolytes some major, _major _credit. They had gotten really intense with this. And I was so, _so_ not used to things working this way. I almost felt like I was being led along- I mean, couldn't Saint Dane easily be behind this? For some reason, though, I felt that that wasn't so- this was a multiple person effort. Despite Saint Dane's many unusual powers, he still can't be more than one person (or at least, if he can, he's been saving that trick for an opportunistic time like… this). Spader brought me back to reality by exclaiming, "My name's Thomas!" Which, you know, isn't weird at all. The cab driver grunted, and I felt a tinge of worry.

"That's great, kid. My name's Frank."

Spader laughed, scratching his head in embarrassment. (Did I mention how long his hair had gotten? It was like he was growing a mane. And he could actually pull the look off, too!) He mouthed the words 'sorry, mate', to me, but I just shook my head in response, trying to hide a small smile. This all just seemed surreal. It was like I was a normal kid again, hanging out with a friend, going on an adventure. And then I was brought back to the reality that, while this certainly _was_ some sort of adventure, the goal of said venture was to _stop an immortal demon from destroying the universe as we know it_. No pressure or anything like that.

Oh. And I'm sorry for not mentioning it to you before, guys, but I really would've liked to come see you before I had to leave for Chicago. I kind of feel now like I was ditching you two or something, but that's really not true. I would've loved to have visited you. The problem was, if I'd have done that, we would've missed our flight. But if you think I intend to spend this entire journey on Second Earth without getting back to Stony Brook to see you… well. I don't see it happening.

But, back to the story. We arrived at the airport, which, as you would expect for such a busy city, was, well… _busy_. We paid the cabbie with some of the cash we had from the acolytes, and entered the building.

The amount of people was stifling. Then I remembered something.

"The pepperspray," I whispered to Spader. "You've got to get rid of it."

"Why?" Spader asked, incredulous. "We might run into more of those nasty wogglies- shouldn't we stay prepared?"

I shook my head. I couldn't be angry at him, 'cause he didn't have a clue- airport security wasn't really a factor on Cloral. "They'll go nutso on you. Just get rid of it."

Spader didn't seem to entirely trust me on that at first, but he managed to inconspicuously toss the little black spraycan into a garbage can. I almost felt like saying, _goodbye, savior!_ to the little thing (after all, it had saved our lives from a fangy doom not too long ago). But hey. Gotta do what ya gotta do. I have to say, though, I didn't like not having any method of defense other than my own body at my disposal. I figured I could dish out a nasty beating if I needed to, but, while I definitely wouldn't call Spader a weakling, I don't really think he'd be too effective at hand-to-hand combat.

After a moment, though, I realized that weaponry wouldn't matter much at this point if Saint Dane knew where we were and really wanted to get us. Since, you know, we were going to be _sitting ducks_ in a giant, metal, possibly-deathtrap. Talk about a reality check. It took all my faith in the fact that this time _we_ were the ones playing the typical 'Saint Dane only' cards, that _we_ were the ones with the uncertain identities, to get us through that security line.

"I don't get why I have to take my shoes off," Spader mumbled, though it wasn't a discontented sort of mumbled, rather, it was tinged with curiosity. "Do they inspect your feet, or something? Because that's just weird."

"You'll see," I said, taking off my shoes and putting them in a gray bin to be sent through the security machine. I walked through the metal detector, and, without commotion, my boarding pass and ID were checked and I was off to put my shoes back on. Spader followed after me. I half-expected to hear the loud whir and see the flashing lights on the metal detector go off, just so our plans could be hindered, just so they could detain Spader, realize he wasn't who he said he was, and, and… Guh. See what this life does to me? I'm getting to be totally paranoid.

Spader was through without a sound. Boarding pass checked, and he retrieved his jacket and shoes.

"I still don't get it, mate. They didn't even _look_ at my feet," Spader said, obviously confused. I smiled. Spader's got a way of doing that- totally getting rid of the pressure in a situation, I mean. He just says the most hilarious things, and he doesn't mean to be funny. Though, honestly, putting myself in his situation, I guess I would wonder the exact same things.

"They don't look at your feet or anything. They just want to make sure you aren't hiding weapons or anything in your shoes," I told him.

"Oh," he responded. "Well. I guess that makes sense, then. So what now? We need to get to a Gate B-16?"

We looked around. The place was massive, and packed, too. And everyone seemed to know where they were going. Guess what? _We had no clue_. I looked up, to see a sign with arrows pointing every which way.

"I think we go to the left," I said, and set off into the crowd. Spader bounded after me, and we made our way through the commotion, finally arriving at our destination- Gate B-16. So, everything had gone pretty well so far. We were here. We'd gotten away from the quig-dogs, we'd gotten here, we'd gotten through security, and we'd arrived at the right gate. It almost seemed unnatural.

"Now boarding Flight 314, Gate B-16, Seating Groups 1-3," a voice announced over a loudspeaker. I glanced at our boarding passes- group 2. That was us.

I looked at Spader. He'd never done anything like this before- nothing near it, really. The only airplane he'd ever really even seen was Jinx's plane, back on First Earth, which was _nothing_ like the commercial airliner we were about to board.

"Ready?" I asked him. He looked at me. I saw him gulp, and then smile waveringly.

"Hobey ho, let's go."

xXxXxXx

The plane we went on was a small, cramped little thing. I claimed the window seat, planning on leaning against it, and taking a nap- it was gonna be a long flight, after all, somewhere between 2 and 3 hours. Which isn't too long, but, still a while to expect me to sit still and do nothing.

As the seats were three in a row on either side of the aisle, Spader got to sit next to someone else. Being the kind of guy he is, he immediately struck up a conversation with the other passenger. The dude's just not shy at all. How he managed to keep talking for around an hour I couldn't say, but he seemed to find the right words, despite the fact that I knew there were some 'Second Earth' things that he probably had no clue about. I bet he could've gotten a discussion going on throughout the whole plane if he hadn't gotten dizzy after a while.

"My ear's are all weird," he complained. "Is that supposed to happen?"

"Yup," I replied. I reached into the seat above me, pulling out the gnarly headphones within and plugging them into the little outlet on the arm of my seat. Spader did likewise, following my example. He seemed to know what to do from then on without my help- I imagined they had something similar to CD Players on Cloral. I knew they had some sort of music system, because I remembered that funky techno/Japanese-style music I'd always hear back there.

Then all the lights went out in the plane. Someone stood up- a flight attendant, it looked like. But, within moments, I sure knew who it was- a formerly 'average Joe' look melted into… you guessed it… Saint Dane, everyone's favorite demon Traveler. I knew all at once that this must've been a hoax. Saint Dane had obviously planned all this, and now he was going to sink this iron bird somehow, and, of course, he wouldn't die, because he _never _seemed to die, but we would. Talk about unfair. And another few hundred people would be going with us. Guilt trip, much?

"Thought it would be that easy, Pendragon?" Saint Dane spat, walking over towards me. Everyone else seemed petrified. Spader's eyes were defiant, and I was just angry. Well. Angry and scared, I'll admit it. Saint Dane barely seemed to notice Spader- his eyes were directly on me. In his hand was a long wooden pole, like the ones they had on Zadaa. I didn't get it- where had that come from? As far as I knew he couldn't just keep weapons on his true self while hiding under the guise of someone else that lacked said weapon… Regardless, he had it now. He walked over to me, smiling.

"Remember when I offered you your chance, Pendragon? You could've accepted. You could've avoided all of this, and so much more. Now, you're going down, and this whole plane of innocent people is going to go with you," he murmured, icy eyes burning my own.

"It's not happening," I responded, though I had no clue how I could stop it from happening. He was in the aisle- I was at the window seat. A bit of a disadvantage, especially with the cramped conditions. I'd have to unbuckle my seatbelt, jump onto my seat, and dive over Spader and the person sitting by him. It wasn't likely I'd get that far when Saint Dane had a weapon and I didn't.

"We'll just see about that," Saint Dane hissed. "But I have another offer. Spader... You could come with me. You don't have to die. I offer you the chance to join me. We shall bring all of Halla together, as it should be, and we shall be heroes…"

"Never," Spader spat, before Saint Dane had even finished speaking. In an instant, Vo had unhooked his seatbelt, and made as though to pounce upon Saint Dane.

What followed was horrible.

The most sickening sound I'd ever heard, in my entire life. Saint Dane had whirled the stave, swinging it with all his power… and it had connected, right with Spader's skull. Spader's lifeless body was sent crashing back, until it was lying next to me, his head actually on my shoulder. There was an obvious indent in his forehead where the pole had connected, and his nose was already dripping blood… His eyes didn't move. I could barely move. The rest of the passengers stared on, mouths wide.

"See what happens to those who defy me, Pendragon?" he asked, poking at my arm with the long stave. Poking at me, over and over again… and I couldn't speak, I could only look at Spader, Spader, dead Spader…

"Mate? Uh, wake up, won't you? We're here…" I heard a whispering. "C'mon!"

I shot up in my seat. "Spader?" I asked, looking at him. Alive and well. No indents on his forehead, eyes full of life.

"Well, yeah, mate. Sorry I'm not Loor, if that's what you were wishing," he chuckled. "Plane touched down. Everyone's getting off."

I breathed a major sigh of relief. I just wanted to hug the guy. Seconds ago, I'd thought he was dead. You really don't know how grateful you are for someone until you think you might've lost them.

"No, no, I'm glad you're here, Spader," I replied. "And, alright. Thanks for waking me up."

"Glad you're glad I'm here. I'd sure wonder why you bothered fetching me if ya didn't want me!" he grinned, and we headed off the plane. O'Hare wasn't half as crowded as our departure airport. We didn't have any bags to pick up, so we just walked outside, and hailed a cab. I pulled out the letter previous to the one I included in my last journal. I guess I could've included it, but it was really just details more than a letter at all. Anyhow, it had the address for an apartment that had been arranged on it, so I told the cabbie to go there. It was dark now, and Spader seemed even more amazed at the glowing city that was Chicago.

"Looks awesome," he said. I bet he could've said more than that if he could have figured out where to start.

We arrived at our apartment about forty-five minutes later. It, on the other hand, did _not _look so awesome.

"Well, maybe it'll have a good view?" Spader mused, trying to be optimistic.

"Maybe," I replied, and we stepped inside, eager to see our new headquarters

_ReviewReviewReview! You gotta tell me what you think. I'll keep writing. You keep reviewing. I only got 1 review for chapter one as I write this… I'm sure not a whole lot of people read Pendragon fanfiction, but, uh… :'D If you hit it, please review it!_


	3. Ambition and Expired Milk

_Note: Same stuff as before, I'm not gonna write it again; forgive me if it's a bit dashy, it's kind of a Thanksgiving gift to my awesome readers, and it's sort of being started during commercial breaks for Hitchcock movies XD The beginning several paragraphs were while I was watching The Birds, but, it's kind of a belated Thanksgiving gift now because I had to stop so I could watch Psycho (is a favorite of mine). But… here you go, now, anyhow. I hope you like it!_

_C.V. Spike, November 23, 2007_

Pendragon, Journal #1 (Continued)

(a.k.a. Ambition and Expired Milk)

Our apartment was up a few floors. We were in apartment number 18, to be specific. It was unlocked, strangely enough, which was good, because we hadn't been left a key. The key, in fact, was inside, sitting on a simple, if not scratched up, wooden table. The apartment was furnished, and even stocked with food. It was almost as though someone had been living here up until we'd come… perhaps that had been the case, even. It was very small, really just one big room that had kind of a partition separating it up. There was a kitchen area, with cabinets full of canned food, and a refrigerator with some soda, lunch meat, bread, and expired milk. There was an area with a couch and a TV, and, past the partition, there was a twin bed and two doors, one leading to a closet, the other to a small, dirty bathroom. The entire ceiling was mottled colors, obviously due to a pretty major water leak, and the floor, all cheap white tiling, was covered in dirt.

"Uh… nice digs, huh?" I muttered. I could tell by the look on Spader's face that he was a bit skeptical.

"I guess it fulfills its purpose, at least," he replied. "Could use a bit of a maintenance check, though…"

To give you a more accurate mental picture, the phrase _'could use a bit of a maintenance check'_ was kind of an understatement. But, then again, it was better than some of the places I've had to stay in my experience as a Traveler, and, at least as far as the dirt was concerned, we could fix that up.

But the first order of business, as was decided by my stomach, would be to obtain some food. After glancing into the refrigerator and scanning the expiration dates on the bread and lunch meat (better safe than sorry), I made a sandwich. Spader followed suit, and we sat down at the table.

It couldn't be that easy, though. When I pulled out the chair I was gonna use to take a seat, I saw a nice, thick file sitting on it- full of wonderful, tedious information I needed to know, I was sure.

I picked it up and tossed it on the ground. Hey, first order of business, right? Even I need a break every once a decade. Sheesh.

"Uh… what _is _this, mate?" Spader asked. He'd taken a bite of his sandwich, and the bemused expression on his face said everything. I should've guessed that bologna wasn't a typical lunchmeat on Cloral- I mean, what're the chances of someone deciding to mix turkey, pork, and who knows what else on more than one territory? I decided I may as well give him the truth.

"That's every animal that ever existed, ground up together and flattened into tasty, circular sandwich meats, on slightly stale bread. It even _sounds_ delicious, doesn't it?"

Spader shrugged. "Not sure about that, but, if it's a Second Earth thing, I don't wanna miss out." He took another bite of the sandwich. I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Loor would think about bologna. I'd have to find out sometime. Ah, the wonders of Oscar Mayer, bringing people together!

After finishing my sandwich, I picked up the file. Opening it up, I realized it was a file on a particular person. His name was Trevor Skaam (pronounced 'Skom', by the way), and he was a… prepare yourself, because this is gonna be crazy…

A gym teacher. I almost dropped the file, except that I wasn't really holding it so much as I had it lying on the table. I laughed. I mean, this was utterly ridiculous! Saint Dane, masquerading as a _gym teacher_? Since when was _that_ a route to world domination? I wanted a ticket back to New York right then and there, because this was totally bogus. The only thing that kept me reading was the typical knowledge that I was already kind of stuck here, at least for the moment. Spader, meanwhile, had discovered the TV. I figured they must have something reasonably similar to it on Cloral, because, after tinkering with it for a bit, he seemed to get the gist of using it. He also must've sensed that I was not in a very good mood, because I noticed that a few times he opened his mouth like he was going to say something to me, and after looking at my expression just kind of resumed what he was doing. I gotta give credit to his Traveler instincts, though, because he immediately seemed to find and tune into CNN. I looked away from the file, because it all seemed asinine to me anyhow (though I figured I'd look at it later), and prepared to get filled in on all the stuff that this Traveler business had me missing.

And, I gotta say, it was kind of discouraging. You know, on a lot of the territories, it had seemed like there was minor stuff going on, where _maybe_ Saint Dane could step in, but there was always one thing that popped out as being major, and that was usually where you'd find the creep.

Here on Second Earth, I saw so many things rolling by on that news station, so many places where Saint Dane could step in and possibly bring our world tumbling down, that I just started to feel sick inside. I didn't even know where to begin. He could step in most _anywhere_ and have a chance to play his evil cards. I was almost starting to doze off, my head hurting from all the possibilities, when I heard something.

Presidential elections. Candidates: Republican Party- James Marrow. Democratic Party- Angelina Cruise. And a stunningly popular third party candidate.

Guess who.

"In a strange turn of events, the public eye is diverting from the traditional party platforms, and focusing on a new third party candidate- Chicago's own Trevor Skaam. A veteran of the Vietnam war and a community leader in the Windy City…" I was stunned.

So, he was an _ambitious_ gym teacher, eh?

"Fill me in. I can tell just by looking at you that you know something I don't," Spader said.

"The file. It was on that guy they're talking about, Trevor Skaam. I thought it was stupid, it just said he was a gym teacher, but now…" I let it trail off. "Now, he might just have a chance at becoming the leader of a world power."

"…So what're we gonna do?"

I sighed. Then again, this was better than not knowing _anything_. At least now it seemed fairly possible that we had a good lead.

"Well. First we look through that file."

xXxXxXx

And that's when we came upon the plan. In one of the cabinets, we found a stash of stuff, obviously intended for our use- wigs, contacts, that sort of thing. Before we knew it, we weren't Bobby Pendragon and Vo Spader anymore- we were James Reno, a muscular guy with shaggy blonde hair, and his brother Thomas, a lean and mean version with shoulder length, choppy brown hair. My eyes turned brown, and Spader's turned a strange mix between bright blue and lavender. With a bit of makeup (so sue me. If you're gonna play at espionage, you've gotta do it well), the energetic Spader looked like he didn't get quite enough sleep, with darkness very untypical of him added under his eyes, and I made myself a little paler, covering up some of the color I'd obtained from those long days training under the harsh sun of Zadaa. All in all, we stood rather proudly that night in front of the cracked mirror of our apartment, looking rather like two entirely different people.

But that's kind of jumping ahead a bit. If you hadn't figured it out, this was how things were gonna be playing out.

Trevor Skaam, the hero of the people, community spokesperson _and_ teacher of the children, was our target. And, as our acolyte had wisely figured out, our easiest shot at learning more about him would be to… learn _from _him. To be his pupils, unappealing as that sounds. So yeah. I was going back to school- and so was Spader.

Thing was, Spader had never been to a Second Earth school before, which kind of worried me a bit. Luckily, whoever had arranged all this for us had not only assured us that we'd been registered to attend the school Skaam taught it, but we had a schedule to work with, too. Each day would start with Chemistry, Algebra, and English, and Spader and I had those classes together. But then we'd have to split up- scheduling conflicts, I imagine, made it so I had History next, and Spader had some commercial foods class. (I was kind of bitter about that- if Spader had to struggle through a Second Earth commercial foods class, well, honestly, I wanted to be there to see that!) Then I'd have a geography-type class and _he'd_ have History, and then, our last class of the day, we were both scheduled to have gym with Skaam. A note at the bottom of the page said that Skaam also taught General Botany, but that it had been a single class and, as we'd be entering quite a bit past the start of the school year, it was already full.

Great. With Skaam in General Botany he'd probably teach the students to somehow engineer a plant that turns everything around it into a poisonous substance that _also_ turns everything around _it_ into a poisonous substance, until, inevitably, _everything_ is a poisonous substance, but by that time, there… Guh. Paranoia, paranoia.

But still, I thought it was a pretty reasonable possibility. But you can't do everything, can you? I'd just have to try and sneak a peak at his lesson plans for that class. Because, man, I'd _totally_ tell the principal on him if I saw 'teach students to genetically engineer extremely dangerous plant' in there.

So, we had tomorrow off. But after that, well… it was back to school. Or _to _school, in Spader's case.

"No worries, mate. We've got school on Cloral, too," he assured me. That made me feel a little bit better.

Thing was, maybe Cloral and Second Earth both had schools, but, how different were they?

Well. I'm going to end this journal like that. I'm about to go to sleep- I've claimed the bed, and Spader's already asleep on the couch. It's pretty quiet, other than a steady dripping sound- not sure if it's because of the faucet that never seems to turn off all the way, or if our roof is raining. Either way, I suppose it's just something I've got to deal with.

Thanks for reading. I'll try and get another journal out to you soon. And, whenever I think you can step in, I'll let you know right away. Like I said, I don't intend on this whole journey taking place without seeing you at least once.

And so we go.

_End of journal #1! Please review, keep me writing! XD Sorry it's belated, but, well, at least I got it done for you. I promise, if I'd tried to write it during Psycho it would've made no sense…X3Kyah. I'll try and have the next one soon! _


	4. Shopping Spree! OMG!

_Note: So, I've been busy lately. My apologies for taking a bit with this chapter, but, well, I figure it's better to wait and do it right than to have it out there quick 'n crappy… (Though if you were about to think, "well, isn't it crappy anyway", I want you to know I hate you and you can go curl up somewhere and read Nora Roberts. There.) So, yeah. Anyhow, here it is, and I hope you enjoy it. Remember, I only wish I owned Pendragon, and this is all just for fun, so don't take anything too seriously XP_

_C.V. Spike, December 15 2007- December 24, 2007_

Pendragon, Journal #2

(a.k.a. Shopping Spree! OMG!)

I woke up the next day to a shrill scream. Immediately my Traveler-reflexes had me jumping out of bed, my groggy eyes scanning (somewhat unsuccessfully) the area. I knew if there was trouble, I was going to have to improvise a weapon. It took me about five seconds, though, to realize that there was absolutely nothing wrong.

Well. Spader had found the Sci-Fi Channel. He turned to face me, raising an eyebrow.

"There's some really weird shows on this thing, mate," he said, shaking his head and flipping the channel. I sighed, flopping back down on the bed. Great, we had the Traveler from Cloral watching cheaply-made science fiction and crappy soap operas. Way to make a first impression, Second Earth!

I tried to make a checklist in my mind of things that needed to be done. I've said it before, but it was weird, having a base plan laid out for me for once. And not having anything, really, to do until tomorrow. But then, I thought of something really important- we only had one change of clothes. Which, you know, may be fine on some territories where you're constantly wandering around and haven't exactly got time (or cash) for a change. Except that we were going to school. I highly doubted that people wouldn't notice.

So, after having a breakfast of toast and canned chicken noodle soup, Spader and I set out for a day of… shopping. Oh, joy.

We started out by going to the bank and withdrawing some cash. I didn't intend to spend a lot, but I knew some things would be necessary- we needed some clothes, like I said, so we wouldn't stick out, and we needed some food- a person can only live on canned soups and lunch meat for so long, and I'd dumped the expired milk out already.

It wasn't very hard to find what we were looking for- this is Chicago, after all. There were clothing stores scattered about everywhere. It was a bit harder to find ones that had what we were looking for, but eventually we found them. We tried to pick out clothes that could be used in several different combinations- I knew we had plenty of cash, but I didn't see any reason to spend it like crazy. Okay, so I might've indulged and bought a nice pair of Nikes, but Travelers have to be able to run fast if they need to pull a quick escape, right? Right.

After a couple hours of reasonably successful shopping, we reached a general consensus that it was lunchtime. We dropped the clothes we'd gotten off at our apartment, but neither of us was really up for a sandwich. So we grabbed a couple hotdogs from a street vendor and took a seat in one of the neat little, kind of tucked-away parks we'd found.

"So, what do you think of Second Earth?" I asked Spader. He seemed thoughtful for a moment.

"It's definitely interesting," he stated, pausing to take a bite of his hotdog. Then he continued. "Kinda scary, I admit, but it seems alright. It's just a lot different from home, you know? And a lot different than First Earth, too."

"Yeah. It's amazing how much a territory can progress over time," I said. Spader nodded.

"I wonder what Cloral's gonna be like in fifty or so years. It's too bad there's not a Second Cloral," he chuckled. And it kind of made me think- why is it that the Earth territories get three time stages? Why _isn't_ there a First Cloral, Third Cloral, Second Zadaa, or First Quillan? It kind of made me want to try shouting something like 'First Veelox' next time I got near a flume, just to see. It just makes me remember that there's still so much that I don't know.

"Bobby?" Spader asked. He looked kind of concerned. I mentally resisted whirling around to see if Saint Dane was standing behind me or something, and asked, 'What?"

"Are vampires real?"

I let out a major sigh of relief. "No. So that's what you were watching?"

"It was one of the things I was watching. That vision box has a lot of different things on it," Spader replied.

_Vision box?_ "Do you guys have those on Cloral?" I asked, curious.

"Not exactly," Spader replied. "We might, someday. Ours is used more as a broadcast station. We don't have all of those fake stories and stuff, either."

Mentioning the 'fake stories' made me remember a vow I'd made at the start of this journey. I immediately hopped up and walked off, leaving Spader to catch up.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" he called, bounding up to me. "What's this all about?"

"We're gonna go see a movie."

The movie was Big Daddy. Big Daddy with Adam Sandler- I obviously hadn't been around Second Earth long enough lately to see any previews, but I knew that actor was usually in comedies, and I figured that'd be the best thing to show a first-time moviegoer. You know, rather than to freak him out _completely_ by taking him to see Saw IV or something.

And it was pretty funny, and despite his Cloral background, he seemed to get most of it. If he didn't love the movie, he at least had definitely loved the popcorn- let's just say, between the two of us, I was glad we got free refills.

"So, did you like it?" I asked as we were leaving. It was just starting to get dark out. We were both full-up on popcorn, so at least for the moment, dinner wasn't necessary. We stopped by a Walgreens, though, to grab some stuff to bring a little variety into our menu back at the apartment. After that, I really didn't see much else that could be done, so, without much issue, we returned to the apartment.

I flipped through the channels while Spader wrote a journal. Everything was pretty calm now- it was really pretty nice. So, I tuned out to It's a Wonderful Life, and man, it seemed like it really was.

I just hoped tomorrow wouldn't change all that.

XxXxXxX

I woke up to blaring alarms the next morning. It was so early that it was still dark outside. I sat up, yawning and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I turned off the alarm clock. Today was going to be my first day as James Reno, and I felt like curling up and going back to sleep.

Fortunately, Spader had been woken up as well, and he was rather more spontaneous. After sitting completely still for several minutes, he quickly got up and went into the bathroom. Around twenty minutes later he came out, in the guise of Thomas Reno.

"Need you to put those sleepmarks under my eyes, mate," he said. "Make sure I look good and UnSpaderific." I laughed a little, still tired, and a little under an hour later, we were standing beside the bus stop in full disguise. I've said it before, but it was amazing how different we looked- Vo just looked so… _not_ Vo. I actually really figured we might go unrecognized by Saint Dane, if he really was Trevor Skaam in the first place.

The first trial was the bus, though. Packed full of kids screaming and talking at an almost unbearable din, and smelling kind of like melted crayons, it was way worse than the bus back in Stony Brook. Sure, so a terrible bus ride really can't compare with, you know, a _deathly game of Hook_, but it was still pretty bad.

And the school? Well. There was a metal detector at the entrance, so that tells you something.

Regardless, we stepped inside- and so began the Chicago High School career of the Reno brothers.

_Thanks for reading! I know it was kind of short and not very exciting- it was kind of a filler, ya know? To get necessary stuffs accomplished. But I figured it'd work okay as a Christmas present anyhow… The real exciting stuff will be happening next chapter (hopefully). I've just been busy, as I said, but maybe I'll have some time to think up new stuff during winter break. In other news: I saw Sweeney Todd today. And it was marvelous. Utterly so. I could rant to you about it for several pages, but I'll refrain! Reviewreviewreview, even though I know it was short and kind of uneventful! (I tried to put some food for thought in there, though…­)_


	5. Even Travelers Need a Formal Education!

_Note: Man. I can't even make something up as a good excuse for taking so long with Chapter 5. To be entirely honest… I kind of FORGOT about Circle K. –mentally massacres self- I feel terrible about it, too. I'm really sorry that it's taken over a month for this… I really will try to be better about updating, but I honestly can't guarantee anything, of course, so… I'd just recommend putting this story on your alert list. Sorrysorrysorry! And so… without further ado, let us begin…_

_C. V. Spike, February 18, 2008_

Pendragon Journal #2

(a.k.a. Even Travelers Need a Formal Education!)

This school was nothing like Stony Brook.

I mean, I definitely wasn't expecting it to be- this is Chicago, after all. But still, I guess I just wasn't quite imagining it properly beforehand, because I was still surprised. Spader and I were herded through the metal detectors, and thrust with the crowd into a _giant_ school. Seriously, the place was massive- which was good, because it was also terribly crammed.

I'd reviewed our schedules last night, trying to get mine somewhat memorized. We both had Chemistry to start, which was great, I thought, because Chemistry was _exactly_ what I needed to wake me up in the morning. (Since you can't hear my words, I want you to know that that statement was dripping with sarcasm). Spader and I let ourselves be dragged along in the human current for a while, scouting out doorways, which had numbers written above them. Down a long, bright white hallway we finally found the right place, and broke out of the pack to walk in.

It smelled. Really bad. Like someone had taken formaldehyde and spilled it everywhere. Also something I didn't quite need in the morning, though it didn't bother me so much as just irritate me.

And the teacher- short, balding old guy with a nasally monotone. I could see straightaway that this was _not _going to be my kind of class. Absentmindedly, I took notes as he lectured on for the entire forty-five minutes or whatever, (it seemed like two hours) but I didn't really take anything in. I mean, I'm a _Traveler_, I don't belong in a Chemistry class anymore! I was thinking about more important things- Saint Dane, and the possibility that he was Trevor Skaam, and Convergence, and whether I was doing the right thing, and all that. Not to mention what I'd do if he was Trevor Skaam, or, even, if he _wasn't_.

I decided that even with help from the acolytes and Gunny's funding in note, this still wasn't going to be easy.

So, Chemistry really didn't do much for me, and I was glad to hear the bell ring. Spader, on the other hand, seemed totally enthusiastic about the class, and was now 100 awake. It made sense, though- he probably dealt with a lot of Chemistry-type stuff on Cloral. He'd probably tell me about it later- it looked like he wanted to talk now, but he didn't. It worked well- it was very UnSpaderific, and chatting in any volume about a mysterious place called 'Cloral' wouldn't be very typical of a normal high school student.

Anyhow, it was off to Algebra next, which I figured would be another Spader-subject. Unlike Chemistry, though, I'm not so bad at Algebra. I don't _love _it, but I don't hate it like some people do. Spader seemed to know a lot of the stuff already, and I could see him taking in his surroundings, people included, during class. I could imagine what it was like for him- Second Earth was a new territory for him, and in my experience, it was one of the most vibrant, as far as exotic clothing and all types of people. This class seemed to end quickly.

"Man! Did you see all the girls looking at us, mate? James 'n Thomas Reno must look pretty good!" Spader exclaimed in a whisper as we made our way to our next class.

I hadn't even been paying attention to that fact, but it proved true, alright. Even going through the hallway we got a lot of stares. Which was a bit satisfying in a way, but not so good on the 'don't get people's attention' plan.

Then was lunch, which was pretty average. The cafeteria was GINORMOUS, with lunchlines to match. Spader and I got our lunches and sat down at a lone table. Like in the hallways and classrooms, we got a lot of looks, but no one actually came by to sit with us. The food was of the typical bland government freebie style, but it was edible, which was all that really mattered.

English was… English, what can I say? Our teacher in this class was a loud, liberal old woman. She was pretty cool, too, because she talked a lot, thus preventing us from having to do so much work. After that passed, Spader and I split up. Despite whatever differences Cloral schools might have with Second Earth schools, he seemed to be able to find his way about perfectly fine, so I didn't give that much thought. Besides, I figured if he found out anything interesting he'd just tell me anyhow.

History was next- which presented me with a lot of food for thought. We were currently going to begin our history year with the Civil War. I wondered what Spader would think of that- had any such thing as slavery existed on Cloral? It didn't seem like it, in any case. Cloral almost seemed… utopian, in a way. I wondered what he'd think about the Earth territories when he learned a bit of history about them. I was actually a little worried about that, too. Spader was about to learn about all the things about Earth's history- good and bad. I knew he'd understand that history was history, but, as an Earth resident, I hated the thought of the possible negative impression it might make. Obviously Cloral had made a good impression on me, and I wanted the Earths to make at least an _okay_ impression on him.

I knew a lot of the stuff from this class already, so I kind of zoned out a little, admittedly. I heard other students talking, and the name 'Skaam' caught my attention.

"Yeah… I had gym last period. Skaam made us run for ten minutes straight. I swear, I almost passed out," one student complained quietly.

"I know, right? He's a total sadistic ass. I can't believe how my parents adore him. He's giving me an F right now and they're still helping him campaign and stuff, saying it's all my fault the idiot doesn't pay any attention. I don't care if he's a war veteran. If he becomes president, he'll probably turn America into, like, a dictatorship or something."

The two that were talking were then 'shhd' by the teacher, so I couldn't hear them continue. One thing was clear, though- Skaam wasn't very popular among some of his students. _And if Skaam became president and really _was_ Saint Dane, he probably _would _turn America into a dictatorship, and you really have no idea what else_… I couldn't help mentally trailing off.

I can sum up the Geography class with a simple 'bleh' and then came gym. I met up with Spader again in the locker room, as we slipped into uniforms that had been generously been found in our lockers. (Yeah, we'd made locker visits throughout the day, and we had good ones- not off in Nowhere Land like you sometimes get. I just didn't find it worth mentioning.) The uniforms were coordinated with school colors- black shorts, with a blue shirt with the school logo on the front, and last name printed on the back.

We sat with everyone else on the bleachers while we waited for our teacher. A man entered the room, and everyone stood up. It was quite obviously Skaam, we didn't need to have seen pictures of him to know it.

He called out names for attendance quickly, and then glared at us all.

"Alright! Off the bleachers! I want twenty pushups, and twenty sit-ups from all of you! Count out loud!"

It really wasn't that bad for me- being a Traveler had made me pretty buff. Spader did pretty well, too. We both managed to finish before the rest of the class, but we also both did a few more than the required amount to avoid any notice.

"Stand up, and start running! Clockwise, now!" Skaam snapped. Brutal guy- if not Saint Dane, definitely of the military cut. Clearly spent no time lollygagging. He didn't give us a set running time, but I was watching the clock as we went around in circles in the gym. There was audible panting by five minutes. Some had given up by eight. Sure enough, we passed the ten minute mark soon enough, and even my legs were complaining.

"Alright, alright! Two minute walk, then up to the weight room!"

It was basic gym class, just totally hardcore. I could see how the average student would have issues passing it- even in the weight room he was a bit criticizing if someone lifted something less than twenty pounds. It was definitely not the typical gym class experience. Kind of felt like some sort of boot camp, really.

Skaam did come over and look us over for a bit. I met his gaze- his eyes were a light blue, which was Saint Dane-ish in my opinion, but I've also been proven rather paranoid as of late.

"Hope you weren't thinking my class was going to be an easy one," Skaam muttered. Spader and I continued doing curls as he spoke to us. "I know you kids are new to this school, so maybe you wouldn't know, but I don't take my job lightly. Expect to come to my class and give it your all, or you won't make it to second quarter."

"Yes, Sir," Spader and I said, nearly in unison. Saint Dane or not, he was currently our teacher, and maybe he didn't know who we really were, and we certainly couldn't be rude. He nodded curtly at this, and stepped away to try and convince a girl that he didn't consider curling ten pounds to be worthy of a grade higher than a C.

With gym class over, we dressed back into our normal clothes, and stopped by our hall lockers, gathering the books we needed to do homework (homework on the first day is definitely not cool, by the way), and then we headed outside to catch our bus. It still smelled just as bad.

"So, how was your day?" I asked Spader, curious on his thoughts. He shrugged.

"Definitely interesting. Bit of a natty-do in the cooking class- nearly set our bread on fire, they said, but I don't really think that was my fault… Lots of weird foods here, you know? Can't blame me if I don't know how to cook 'banana pecan bread'. Like I even know what a 'pecan' is…" he trailed off. He didn't seem frustrated about it, though- even with his Thomas Reno guise, he still couldn't completely hide his characteristic enthusiasm, one of my favorite Spader-traits.

"Anything else?" I asked. Mainly wondering about the history class thing.

"Anything else? Oh, uh, well, the bread didn't taste good anyhow," Spader said, sticking out his tongue to emphasize his point. I laughed a bit, shaking my head. Obviously no terrible impression, then, if all Spader was concerned about was the banana pecan bread.

The sound of people talking on the bus became frustratingly loud, ending our conversation- it was way too hard hear over it all. I still kind of wondered what all this was like for Spader, but I was also thinking about Saint Dane, and whether he was really Skaam, or what. I'd definitely have to talk to Vo about that when we got back.

But the first thing I did when we got back to the apartment was flop on the couch and flip on the TV. Even Travelers need a bit of downtime, right?

_End of chapter! Hope you enjoyed it! I know it's still nothing uber exciting or anything, but I liked writing it and stuff. I'm also curious to know if you'd like to know more of how Spader's first day of Second Earth schooling was, personally? As in, a Spader-authored journal? It's entirely unnecessary, and the story can proceed just as easily skipping it, but I definitely wouldn't mind writing it. So, when you review (because please review!) put whether you'd be interested or not. If I get interested fans, the next chapter will be a Spader-journal:D If not, well, the story will simply progress without the insight. _

_So yeah. Please review, because they mean a lot to me- they were one of the things that made me write this chapter finally, actually XP (If no one had reviewed… MAN. It could've been APRIL or further before chapter 5!) Thanks for reading!_


	6. Failing at Inconspicuousness 101

Ah

_Ah! Please don't hate me! D:_

_Note: (I was surprised inconspicuousness was a word). _

_C. V. Spike, Monday, April 28, 2008_

Spader Journal #1

(a.k.a. Failing at Inconspicuousness 101)

Hobey, mate. School on Second Earth is a lot different than back in Cloral.

By the way, sorry for taking a bit to get this journal to you. I know I'm supposed to be keeping you updated, but I'm just trying to take all this in. I thought, you know, that since I'd been to First Earth I'd have a real good idea of what this territory would be like. And, yeah, some of it's still the same, but man! These guys have taken the word progress to a whole new level!

But I've already kind of droned on to you about that, and a lot of it is more of the same. The only other thing I can really note is that I think we definitely need to make sure to include zombie movies in our programming schedules once we finally get our vision boxes working spiffily in Cloral- I've never seen anything so hilariously ridiculous in my life.

Anyway, I was trying to talk about Second Earth school. It's way different than our system in Cloral. These classes, I can see 'em being helpful, but they just aren't as… scientific. For example, I'm enrolled in some sort of cooking class right now, but more on that later… I'll try to actually focus and tell you what's up in order for once.

First off, the school was a monster, and just totally packed with kids. We had to go through these metal detectors to get in, and it was basically like being herded around. Apparently on Second Earth school's a requirement, so there were way more people in one place than I think I've ever seen before. We also had schedules that filled up a day, rather than certain classes being held at certain times.

My schedule started with Chemistry, and Bobby's did too. I don't think he liked it much, but for me, it was all basic stuff- despite the territory differences, Chemistry is still entirely the same on Second Earth as it is in Cloral. In fact, when I took Basic Chem back home it was way harder than this stuff. I figure that even though Second Earth's a bit more technologically advanced on some notes, it seems like Cloral's still way more chemically advanced.

Algebra is also exactly the same, thankfully. I still think it's a bit easy in comparison to what we were learning in Cloral. Looking around the class, though, most people didn't seem to think math was much of a priority. I guess if you have fancy calculators that can tell you everything you need to know, then maybe it isn't so important. I dunno- I can't criticize Second Earth. It seemed like a lot of the students didn't really want to be there, and if they don't want to be there I can't expect them to learn hardcore Cloral-style Algebra. It was actually kind of nice- not having to pay too much attention to understand, since while I've been here I've had to take so much different stuff in. I was a bit more interested in all the looks Bobby and I were getting- you should see us, Yenza! Apparently we're drop-dead gorgeous or something! I think I just look like I need to take a nap…

I was expecting lunch to be interesting. There're so many weird foods here- meats especially, stuff we don't have on Cloral (such as bologna, which I told you I'm really not sure about). It was good to see that in the lunch line I found some Cloral-esque foods, too- fish sticks. They didn't taste quite right- kind of processed, not fresh like you can get them at the store back home, but it was still nice to know that at least some things were pretty much the same.

Then was English. I dunno how that all works out, really. Do we speak English on Cloral? I don't even know. Whatever the case, I understood everything just fine, as though it was my native tongue. Special Traveler powers, I guess? That's another something I'll mention a little later, because something else relevant to that bit of thought happened to me later…

Next was Cooking class, possibly one of the most confusing and entertaining classes ever, and definitely something that, while useful, I'd never imagine seeing at my old school.

First off, we had to split off into cooking groups. Now, you know me, Yenza, I can cook, but barely. And I got stuck with this guy that couldn't tell an apple from an orange, I don't think, (not that I could say anything because I was apparently the only guy that didn't know what 'pecans' were) and these two girls that couldn't measure ingredients if their lives depended on it and did nothing but talk for the entire class. Now, considering it was the first day and all, I was expecting, you know, an introduction sort of thing, perhaps.

Well, no. Apparently that's not the way Ms. Skibber, the teacher, operates. She had us making this disgusting smelling stuff known as 'banana pecan bread', which neither sounds good, smells good, or tastes good. In fact, I'm kind of wondering if maybe the point of the first class was more to teach us how _not _to cook so that we'd do better for the rest of the school year. Because it was chaos.

Since the two girls proved that they couldn't measure for their lives by bringing bowls full of clearly improperly measured ingredients back to our kitchen, I, being the honorable and brave Traveler that I am, took up the cause of getting the correct ingredients (also in part because the other guy, Jake, was sleeping standing up next to the oven).

I had the list of ingredients, and I got through most of them- stuff like bananas and sugar and all that, just like we have back home. But pecans- I had no clue what they were, and there was just this giant cabinet full of stuff. I would've pulled the whole 'watch 'n see what everyone else is doing' sort of thing, but because of the whole 'improper measurement' thing it was a little late for that. And nothing was labeled. All I had to go on were the supposed pecans that the girls had gotten before me.

So, after looking through the cupboard for about ten minutes I finally found what I was looking for. Pecans- they're these little brown, wrinkly-looking things that apparently grow on trees, kind of like weird seeds, apparently. I dunno- they've got this weird consistency, and they taste terrible.

Anyway. I'll stop ranting about the pecans now. But then we had to mix all the stuff together, ya know, and that went alright- Jake was actually pretty reasonable so long as he was told what to do. And apparently since our group was 'group one' or whatever one of us had to do cleanup for the first day of all the cupboard ingredients that had been spilled out by more careless students, as Jake was mixing banana bread ingredients, the two girls spontaneously elected me as the man for the job.

It wasn't exactly a fun job, but I didn't really care- it was way better than a lot of the things this Traveler gig has gotten me into. So that was alright. By the time I was done, most people had already pulled out their bread and were starting to cut it into equal portions. They were also complaining about a bad smell. I groaned inwardly, because I recognized the smell, and I simultaneously acknowledged the fact that I was condemned to the role of 'strict cooking class group overseer' for the rest of this high school career.

Jake was sleeping standing up again (which, while I was displeased with him about it, it still kind of amazes me how he can do that), and the two girls were arguing amongst each other about who was going to get out the bread, complaining about the risk of getting burnt. I rolled my eyes, and played the brave, heroic Traveler again- by putting on an oven mitt and pulling out a loaf of terribly scorched banana bread.

Apparently no one else thought I was heroic, because Jake just blinked and went back to sleep, and the two girls just made a 'yuck' sound and not much else. The teacher (genius that she is!) came over and declared our bread burned and tsk tskked in our general direction. I could swear she glared at me, too! Me! As though it were all my fault. …Whatever.

History was next, another class that we don't really have in Cloral. Or, at least, it's a lot different. Maybe because so much more has happened in Second Earth's history? It makes sense, because they've got more than one territory to chronicle… Anyway, we were going over something called the 'Civil War', which was really pretty interesting. Maybe I'll tell you about it later, but right now there was something else I found more interesting. We had to take notes in this class, so I was taking notes in my notebook just like everyone else. And then these girls started chittering behind me, and I noticed they were pointing at my paper. I totally didn't get what they were talking about- I glanced at someone else's notes, and mine looked just the same, other than that my handwriting was a little different. I didn't see how they could be making fun of my handwriting though, because it looked pretty average to me. But then, when class was almost over, one of them came up to me.

"Do you know Japanese or something?" she asked excitedly, gesturing to my paper. I had no idea what Japanese was, but it sounded like a language or something, and I guess it was. I was trying to figure out what they meant, and suddenly it clicked- did my writing look different to them, but I couldn't see it like that because I was a Traveler and it translated? I'd just been writing like normal, so was the writing actually Cloralian or something?

I had no clue, so I just answered 'yes' to their question. They started asking me to write all kinds of stuff, so I just kind of tried to shake them off, not draw attention to myself (though with this and the cooking fiasco combined, I figure I definitely failed at being inconspicuous thus far). But I had to test it, so I wrote one thing someone requested, just like normal, and then I thought, 'I want this phrase to be in Second Earth', and wrote again underneath it. It looked like the same phrase repeated twice to me, but apparently it didn't to them, and that made all the difference. I guess apparently our languages must look different or something, and that when I'm relaxed I write Cloralian and just need to think a tiny bit to make it Second Earth-style. I dunno- I though it was interesting, but also a bit scary. If anything could alert Saint Dane to the fact that there was a Traveler nearby, it'd be a horde of schoolgirls chattering about a new boy at school that can write in strange, unknown languages.

Anyways, those were my failures at being inconspicuous. When I started Gym with Bobby all the other students were new to me again, and I had a whole 'nother chance to go totally unnoticed. And I did, thanks to a few extra sit-ups and push-ups and a little show of exhaustion at the sadistic ten minutes we had to run around in a circle. The teacher, Skaam, was a creepster, but I couldn't definitively say whether he was Saint Dane or not. He seemed more like he should've been some sort of commander rather than a gym teacher. Then again, that's a very Saint Dane-esque quality… Since we don't have a gym class back home, I can basically just give you the description of it: Someone with a whistle around their neck yells at you to do grueling exercises and you do them or you get sent to the principal's office, and you don't want to get sent to the principal's office because if that happens your parents are called, which is particularly hazardous in the case that you are trying to go unnoticed and don't happen to have any legitimate parents in the current territory.

So, that was my school day. Not so much informative on the Saint Dane note, but that's just because I really don't know right now. I don't think Bobby really does, either. But, anyway. It was our very first day- we have way more time to try and figure everything out, and I'm sure we will.

Anyway, I'm finishing this journal up back at our apartment, and Bobby just finished making some 'ramen noodles'. So, I'll try to keep you updated, Yenza. Till then… hobey-ho!

_Man. I'm sorry x.x I've been busy but that still doesn't excuse how long this one took. I hope you enjoyed it, and hey, at least it's a little longer than usual if that's any compensation… Please, if you like Circle K and haven't already, put this story on your alerts list so you know when it updates! I have a busy summer already, but just having school over should help me in having more writing time. Anyway, thank you very much for reading and please, please review! _


	7. Dejavu

-coughcough- Hobey ho, let's go

_-coughcough- Hobey ho, let's go!_

_-C.V. Spike, August 31, 2008_

Pendragon Journal #2

(a.k.a. Dejavu)

So, this gig would probably be a whole lot more interesting if we had any clue how to proceed. Another day full of unwanted education, and a total _lack _of findings on Skaam. I mean, I don't like him, but so far he's just seeming like an ordinary guy that could use some anger management therapy, or at least something to take care of some passive aggression or something. I mean, so far, everything about him is boringly unincriminating. Today, we had to run six laps around the school track while he chilled out talking on his cell phone. He seemed so cheerful, too, watching us suffer while he just stood there having a conversation. Sadistic, much?

That said, Vo and I have sadly not gathered much info on that particular front. However, the end of another school day did bring about an inevitably- a project.

And so, we were off to the nearest convenience store that I thought would carry posterboard (because we each had to make a giant poster-timeline thing about the Civil War. Thrilling, right?). Well, after discovering that the conveniently located Walgreens had an inconvenient lack of posterboard, we embarked on the journey to Super WalMart, which wasn't as easy as you'd think it would be, because, helpful as you'd figure one would be downtown, we actually had to go out towards the outskirts to reach one.

And Spader thought it was amazing. And, I guess, if you've never been to a WalMart in your entire life, I'm positive it would be. I'm sure it took all of his self-control to avoid running off and frolicking through the aisles of inexpensive, dazzling goods. Though the vision of Spader 'frolicking' was an extremely humorous one.

Unfortunately, we couldn't just spend hours upon hours in WalMart (well, we _could_ have, to be critical, but that wouldn't have been time wisely spent, would it have been?) so I recalled the fact that our quest was solely for the much-needed posterboard, and perhaps some gluesticks. Spader nodded, but his eyes still darted around, amazed at all the stuff he saw.

I guess I can say I sort of got sidetracked on the quest, too, because even I couldn't help making a stop in the Electronics section. Gotta see what goodies I've been missing out on, right? And man, I sure have missed a bunch of stuff. Before I left on all this Traveler business, I don't even think there _was_ a box, much less and _X-_Box. And now there were even dual screen Nintendos. It was hard to pull myself away, but being single-minded Travelers bent on saving the world (and completing History class projects on time), we pulled ourselves away from the Electronics.

Well, we might've stayed for an hour or so playing the test games.

So sue us.

With, among other things, the sample sessions of Guitar Hero and Need for Speed completely and utterly _conquered_, and a bag full of necessary history class poster-making supplies, we departed from the great wonder that is the Super WalMart. And headed for the much less great wonder that was our crappy apartment.

-XxXxXx-

It was dark by the time we got back into the downtown area of the city. Spader and I were both hungry, so we stopped by a pizza place to grab some grub, dragging our bag of supplies along with us. The place we went was actually renowned for their pizza, and it was a pretty cool place- they let people just scribble their names all over the walls, which was pretty neat. So, of course, as we were waiting for our pizza to come out, I might have cracked open some of the metallic Sharpies we'd gotten to scribble a Bobby on the wall, and there might've even been a Vo somewhere. We didn't write 'Pendragon' or 'Spader' or anything like that (though I'm seriously doubting that Saint Dane would utilize the walls of a pizza joint to figure out the previous locations of Travelers), but it just sort of felt… _cool_ to leave our marks. And the thought that the next person sitting here might see our names, and have zero clue that I was a Traveler, and that Vo was a Traveler from a whole 'nother Territory. (Though they wouldn't see both of our names at once. Like I said, I didn't figure Saint Dane would ever even look at these walls, but just as a precaution, you know. We had them written very far apart so as not to make the names connectable in any way. Did I mention I grow more paranoid by the day?)

The pizza (pepperoni, of course) was pretty good, I thought. Spader didn't seem too interested in the pepperoni, but I was more than happy to take the circular slices off his hands. We were just waiting for the waitress to come by and give us our bill when an audible gasp went through the restaurant. Both Spader and I were instantly at attention, looking for the cause of the commotion. We could find nothing.

And then the loud background music stopped playing, and the randomly distributed television screens switched from their previous sports channel to news. The volume rose so that everyone would be able to hear. Something very bad had clearly gone down- everyone was watching the screens.

"Democratic party candidate Angelina Cruise is dead," the reporter on-screen announced simply. The restaurant was completely silent as everyone stared at the screens, stunned.

"Candidate Cruise was scheduled to appear in Knoxville today, however, when she failed to show up, assistants arrived at her room to discover the young woman dead. The cause of death is unknown, but appears to be a poisoning of some sort," the reporter continued.

I don't know about Spader, but I think I stopped breathing right about there. This was seeming way, _way_ too familiar. I didn't want to hear anymore, but I knew I _had_ to, so I opened my eyes and listened up.

"This a devastating blow to all of us, I'm sure," the reporter continued. "However, at this time, no further details can be released. Please continue to stay with us as we discover more about this situation."

With this, the news station continued with more trivial things, the major announcement over, and further details withheld from us. Though I had a good guess at what the 'further details' might be. And I really wanted to know if I had an idea of what we were dealing with or not.

We paid our bill, once everyone managed to pull out of their shock-like states, and headed for home. The immediate course of action was to flip on CNN. The same short report we'd already heard seemed to play once every ten minutes, I guess in case someone just tuning in hadn't heard it before.

It seemed an endless amount of time that we just sat there on the couch, waiting and waiting for more details about this mysterious poisoning, wondering if they'd even report to us the vital information that we, as Travelers, needed to know.

Because we'd dealt with poison before.

And I wouldn't be surprised to deal with it again.

Finally, we saw the face of the unfortunate reporter again. And it wasn't a repeat of that same old message, over and over again.

"I'm here with more details on the mysterious death of Democratic candidate Angelina Cruise," the reporter announced.

Spader and I were all ears.

_Notes: Sorry for the super long wait, guys. It's starting to click into a higher gear, though. The story, I mean. I hope it seems so, at least. Prepare for the blatant ignoring-ness of such great works as _Black Water_ and, more importantly, _Raven Rise! _(Seeing as the WHOLE STORY ignores Raven Rise. Amazing book, though, that.) Please continue to read and review, and, as always, thank you so much for sticking with me and continuing to read (and hopefully enjoy) Circle K. I realize I'm not the best writer in the world, and I suck at consistent updating (no chapter's worth five months wait), but I really appreciate your dedication and ability to stick with me. Much love to you! I have notes for the next chapter already, so with any luck it won't take so long! Also, please tell me your thoughts: how ridiculous would you like to see Circle K become? I can keep it pretty slick and intense._

_Or I can make it intensely ridiculous. But I need you to let me know, y'know? Review review review!_

_C.V._


	8. Close Encounters of the Skaam Kind

_Wooo, it's 2009! Well. Thanks for sticking with me. And, without further ado, hobey ho, let's go!_

_~C.V. Spike, January 3, 2009_

Pendragon, Journal #2 (continued)

(a.k.a. Close Encounters of the Skaam Kind)

I couldn't believe it, even though I saw it coming. The exact details of the death of Angelina Cruise weren't released, only that she appeared to be poisoned 'using an undetermined substance that left characteristic greenish trails on the outside of the mouth', and to 'inform your local law enforcement if you have any information that could lead to the identification of this poison or the identity of the killer'.

Of course, Vo and I were pretty sure what the poison was. It sounded like the same stuff that had killed so many on Cloral, and the idea that it was here, on Second Earth, made me shiver. I just couldn't bring myself to really believe it. I didn't want to. It was Spader that brought me back to reality- he'd already had this terrible stuff invade his home, he had to know how I was feeling.

"It'll be alright, mate… If it's the same stuff, we know what we're fighting, right? We've fought it before, he's just playing the same card twice when we already know how to beat it," Vo said, trying to reassure me. I knew he was right… But it just didn't seem that way. Anything could happen- who knew how far Saint Dane had already gone? What if we woke up tomorrow morning only to find out that the U.S.'s crops had been contaminated, just like what happened on Cloral? I knew it could happen all too easily.

I flipped the TV off, right after they gave their report that the other candidate, James Marrow, was under high security. They didn't know how things were going with third party candidate Trevor Skaam, but 'intended to follow up on it'. It made sense, if he was Saint Dane- if he was the one doing the poisonings, what did he have to worry about?

And that was the question, really, whether Saint Dane was Skaam or not. Skaam was running for the presidency, and already one of his running mates was deceased. I'd say that made it seem like we were in the right direction. But he was also a gym teacher, which still made no sense to me whatsoever. Was it just a random addition to his Second Earth persona to through the Travelers off his trail?

"Do you think… if he's Skaam, I mean, that he'd have any of the poison at school? In his botany class, maybe?" Vo asked.

"He might. I've already thought about that, if Saint Dane were Skaam… he could have that whole class making poisonous fertilizers right under everyone's noses," I replied. Here I'd figured I was just being paranoid when I'd thought that, but now it actually seemed like it would make sense. It was just the teacher thing throwing me off- he could've played the part of a chemist, why was he doing it this way?

"But even if he did have it in his class, what could we do about it, how could we know?" I continued on that note. Vo seemed thoughtful.

"Isn't there some sort of assembly scheduled for tomorrow?" he asked. I'd totally forgotten about the pep assembly that was supposed to be going on, but I immediately caught on once he mentioned it.

"I could sneak into Skaam's botany class and take samples of as much of the stuff as I can get my hands on… I'd need your help, though, in Chemistry tomorrow… I'd need chemicals to test it with too. I know what I need, if the school's got it," Vo stated, and I nearly jumped with joy that I'd picked the smart-with-chemicals guy as my partner in this gig. By myself, I would've been clueless unless I'd snuck into Skaam's room and seen a bottle labeled 'Extremely Dangerous: Cloral Poison'.

"So there we have it," I mumbled aloud. "Looks like we'll be wearing clothes with lots of pockets tomorrow."

"Yeah," Spader replied. I could tell by his face that he was bothered about having to face what looked like the Cloral poison again, but still, he smirked a little. "We gotta be careful, though, mate, 'cause if we get caught, we're so going to the principal's office."

I couldn't help laughing at the irony of that- as though getting sent to the principal's office even _registered_ on our list of worries.

xXxXxXx

The next morning we became James and Thomas Reno again, ready for another day at school. Needless to say, I was a bit more hyped up for this morning's Chemistry class than usual. We were carrying out an experiment today, which left the perfect opportunity for snatching chemicals if there ever was one. Vo had given me a list of the chemicals he needed, and we were both going to try to collect them throughout the class period, as inconspicuously as possible. We got the vials, corks, and pipets in our pockets easily enough- the back room was stocked with them, and everyone was taking some for the experiment anyhow, so nobody noticed that we took a dozen or so extra. To be honest I felt like I could have walked out with one of the microscopes tucked under my arm and no one would've noticed. We got all of the stuff we needed for the experiment, too, and went back into the classroom area to set it out on our lab table. The next thing was getting the chemicals we needed (for the experiment in class, and for the one out of class). The line leading to the chemicals cabinet was a long one, so Vo and I just sat looking at our lab sheet. I was nervous as heck- I'd looked Saint Dane in the eyes before, so I don't get why trying to steal chemicals was bothering me. It just seemed way to easy to get caught… My eyes kept wandering over the lab sheet, not really reading any of it. I didn't even know what this in-class experiment was about.

When the line got smaller, I got up. I knew what I had to get- two chemicals for the experiment here, two for Vo. When I reached the cabinet, I looked around. It didn't appear that anyone was watching me, so I fumbled with a pipet and staring gathering the stuff. I was working on one of the vials for Vo, a foul-smelling clear chemical from the cabinet, when I heard the teacher cough beside me. I swear I broke out in sweat right there.

"What're you doing, Mr. Reno?" the teacher asked calmly.

"Uh… Getting the chemicals for our project, sir," I replied, trying to keep my voice level, and a little clueless-sounding.

"We aren't using that chemical today, Mr. Reno," the teacher stated, restraining a grin and shaking his head. He held up a vial that was sitting on the nearby counter. "This is what you're looking for, I think. Go ahead and wash out that vial you've got there and get the same amount of this chemical here." He then walked off, headed for a student with a raised hand. When he was sufficiently out of the way, I sighed in relief, and corked-and-pocketed the vial. I was much quicker gathering the other chemicals, then I shuffled back over to Vo.

"That was a close one, mate," Spader whispered. "Well… now it's my turn. You should maybe start working on the project with what you've got, though, so it seems less like we're robbing the Chem room and more like we're hopeless students trying to get through our lab sheet."

I nodded, and tried to follow the steps as well as I could. I kept glancing back at Vo, though, nervous that the teacher would catch him like he did me. Then I came up with a plan.

I raised my hand. Simple, I know, but hey- the guy already thought I didn't know what I was doing, and it would give Vo some time to get what he needed without me having to worry about the teacher catching him. I played Chem class idiot, having the teacher walk me through the lab sheet until Spader came back.

"Ah, Thomas. Maybe you can help out your brother with his lab sheet?" the teacher asked, trying to escape my black hole of mostly-feigned Chem-idiocy. 'Thomas' nodded, and sat down at the lab table. We proceeded with the experiment, which was actually pretty easy, and left the classroom with pockets full of successfully thieved chemicals. I was glad to have that over and done with- even after we'd gotten them I'd half expected we'd get caught somehow. Like a vial sticking out of a pocket or something, which is _slightly_ suspicious. We stashed the stuff in our lockers to avoid such an occurrence and headed off to Algebra.

Our schedules continued as normal (and yeah, we _had _done our history projects, by the way, though I can't say we focused on them very well) until right before the end of my geography class. Then an announcement rang out that we were all supposed to gather in the gymnasium for the pep assembly, which would take up the remainder of the block and also all of last block. I was nervous for Spader, but there wasn't exactly anything else I could do- this was the plan, and it was his show right now. I just hoped everything worked out for him.

The pep assembly seemed like it went on forever. I wanted to keep track of Skaam, but with people standing up on the bleachers and cheerleaders flying through the air it was hard to keep an eye on anyone in particular. When I did get the chance, I didn't see him over by the rest of the teachers. I didn't know what we'd do if Spader was caught. What excuse did a normal person have to be taking samples of stuff from a General Botany class? They'd probably think we were running some sort of drug lab at best. Especially if they found _the rest_ of the stuff we'd taken. And that was if Skaam _wasn't_ Saint Dane.

When the pep assembly finally ended, I rushed to my locker. I was surprised, and extremely grateful, to find Spader already there by his locker next to mine. He was deathly pale, however. I looked at him, hoping my eyes could ask the question I wanted answered- 'did you get the samples'? Spader nodded. I was sure there was something more to the story, but I knew that'd have to wait until we were back in the apartment. We gathered our books, careful not to break the vials we'd carefully collected and stashed, and headed outside to get on the bus.

xXxXxXx

When we got to the apartment, we cleared the table off and laid out all of the vials. The ones we'd gotten from the Chem room weren't marked at all, though I assumed Vo must know how to tell which ones were what, but I noticed the ones he'd gotten from Skaam's room were all marked with numbers. He explained how the things had been set up in there, that all of the chemicals that had been made were marked with numbers to identify them. This way, if we found something that seemed like it was the poison, we'd know which batch from Skaam's room was responsible for it.

"It was so close, mate," Vo murmured. "I'd almost gotten all of them when I heard someone fumbling at the door. I nearly dropped the vial I was working with, I had to dive under one of the lab tables in the back, you know, the ones with all the cabinets built in them. I'd had the lights on to see what I was doing, and I could just barely see Skaam's face when I peeked out. I heard him walk around a little, then he just turned the light out and left. I got the rest of the stuff so fast after that… I snuck out and hid in the bathroom for the rest of the time until I heard the bell ring that the assembly was over. My heart was pounding like crazy, man. I kept imagining Saint Dane finding me hiding under a lab table…"

I'd hate to imagine that, but I couldn't help chuckling a little- of all the places to be caught by a demon Traveler. In any case, it was another close one- a close encounter of the Skaam kind, in fact- and I was just glad things had played out well.

Spader got to work setting everything up, while I tried to flip through channels and find something interesting to watch. CNN was still focused mainly on the murder of Angelina Cruise, and, surprise surprise, they still hadn't gotten anywhere in identifying the poison. It was a total unknown to them, something entirely new. So far, it wasn't seeming so new to us, unfortunately. I was just hoping that if it really was the Cloral poison, we'd find out through Spader's experimentation. Then we'd not only know we were up against what we thought we were up against, but that Skaam was really Saint Dane, too. Because it just didn't seem likely that an ordinary human being would coincidentally come up with another poison on Second Earth that was just like the one used on Cloral.

"Alright," Vo said when he'd gotten everything set up. "I've put in the identifiers… if one of these is the Cloral poison, it'll get this black liquid developed on the top of it." Almost as he said it, one of the solutions bubbled from the bottom, popping at the surface with gross blackness. I just stared. Here I'd been hoping we'd get a positive reaction so we'd know Skaam was Saint Dane, and now that I'd seen it I was wishing it hadn't happened, because now I knew for sure that there was an extremely deadly poison threatening my home territory.

"So it is Skaam," I whispered. Spader grimaced.

"Looks like it, mate."

"What're we gonna do?" I had to sit down. I needed to wrap my head around this. The acolyte's suspicions had been right, and this had confirmed it. For whatever reason, Saint Dane was masquerading as a gym teacher, and also, for more obvious reasons, running for the presidency of the United States. But I had no idea where we'd even go from here. Skaam was Saint Dane… but what was our next step supposed to be now that we knew? We couldn't exactly get out there and say, "Hey, Candidate Skaam is a demon bent on destruction, vote for Marrow!" I just don't think it would fly.

We had to think on it. We made a couple of bologna sandwiches, and I nibbled at mine halfheartedly as I worked on homework. Not that I wanted to do homework, I was just that desperate to get my mind off of it for the moment. I knew I couldn't keep my mind off it for long… Spader and I had to make a plan. We had to figure out something, somehow, that could make this mess workable.

xXxXxXx

I figured I'd never get to sleep, but it was late, so I was just about to go to bed. Spader and I had talked about the situation, and yeah, we came up with ideas. It just didn't seem like any of them were the right ones… We planned on just going to school tomorrow like normal, and seeing if Skaam- Saint Dane- would make the first move. I almost hoped he would, because then I'd have a better idea of how to proceed.

I was staring at the oily sheen on the top of the poison that sat at our table. Spader had said it was best to leave it, because we didn't want to dump it anywhere and contaminate something. He'd corked it until we could steal more chemicals to make the antidote or flume to Cloral and bring some over. The other solutions were still lying about. I looked at each of them, unreactive. Then my eyes caught something in one the vials- the gross black bubbles, but they were different. They were really small, gathering at the bottom instead of the top, which just doesn't make sense as far as bubbles go. I ran over to shake Vo, and he came over, rubbing his eyes, to look at what I was talking about. His eyes widened when he saw, becoming entirely awake again.

"Oh… no…" he murmured.

_Ahhh! It's been so long, so longgggg! D: Sorry, sorry! But it's extra long (for me) this time, at least, and a lot happened! Please review and tell me what you think. And thank you again for sticking with me, whether you've been here since the very beginning and have had to deal with my sporadic updating or are new readers of Circle K. I always say I'll try to update sooner, but I really can't make any promises, so please put this story on your alerts list if you like it! All I can say is that I'll do my best to make 2009 a better year for updating Circle K, though it's bound to be a pretty busy year. Thank you for reading, and please do review, because your support keeps me going! I'll continue to try to keep Circle K interesting!_


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